During a Wednesday Tin Shingle TuneUp Office Hour, which is open to members from 1-2 pm, I, Katie, got to meet Winnie @winsbooks! Professionally as an author, she is Winifred Tataw, and both her names are part of what we discussed SEO-wise. Winnie is a writer in the Young Adult Fantasy genre, and her book is available on her website.
Part of why Winnie joined Tin Shingle was to improve SEO on her website. “I’ve downloaded 30 SEO apps, and it’s not happening,” she told me on a call before she joined. The simple truth is that those apps won’t help! I haven’t seen everyone, but what has always helped since the dawn of SEO 20 years ago (which is when I started), is creative writing with keywords in mind, and linking out to other related web pages is the perfect combo.
First off, we discussed where Winnie had to put her name on different pages (because her website won’t rank well for her own name if it’s not mentioned anywhere...a common problem of speaking in 1st person...and having her author name on blog articles isn’t weighted enough for Google). We discussed her Author Spotlights, a service she created to spotlight other writers of color who are Black, Brown, Indigenous, and otherwise unrecognized. Being the month of Ramadan, she has been surprised to not see the author highlights of Muslim authors right now.
Winnie interviews the author and does a full feature on the book. While this is in a section called “Services,” she doesn’t charge for this, unlike others in her field. We discussed how she is creating pure publicity for these authors, and while that is a gift/service for them, in the publishing world, it is called something else: publicity ☺️💜
She is going to rename that section to Author Spotlights and feature recent interviews on its home page. Tin Shingle is adding Winnie to our Media Contacts Idea Center, and tagging her as #BlackMedia for others looking to find opportunities. Winnie is Tin Shingle’s youngest member: she is in her 3rd year at The College of Charleston! Which is where I went also! It is an honor having a student trust Tin Shingle enough with her investment. Her eye is on the prize(s).